


Ligaments

by hes5thlazarus



Series: Dirthara Ma! [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon Compliant, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, F/M, Halamshiral (Dragon Age), Orlesian Grand Game (Dragon Age), Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Red Lyrium, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, prisons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:48:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29946789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: Briala has loaded her dice when playing the Game. Gaspard throws her in prison, but her message goes out to both the Dread Wolf, keen to better his reputation for catastrophe amongst the elves of Orlais, and the Dalish Inquisitor, who is still reeling from the loss of her arm.“We do not necessarily know he is the enemy,” Leliana says. “And it is exciting, no? To have that rush of danger and destruction between every kiss.”
Relationships: Briala & Lavellan (Dragon Age), Briala & Solas, Female Lavellan & Leliana (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas, Lavellan & Leliana (Dragon Age), Lavellan & Solas
Series: Dirthara Ma! [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086839
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Ligaments

“We do not necessarily know he is the enemy,” Leliana says. “And it is exciting, no? To have that rush of danger and destruction between every kiss.”   
  
Lavellan eyes her doubtfully. “He ripped my arm off, Leliana,” she says.   
  
“And you kissed him while you did it,” Leliana returns. The two women keep walking, and Lavellan casts a look behind her to see who exactly is following them. One of Leliana’s scouts tucks themselves out of view, just a fraction too late. She sees their shadow, and smiles.   
  
The elvhen district of Halamshiral, called the Dirthavaren, has recovered since Marquise Briala has taken the reins. News of her arrest has not yet left the palace. Even the Divine does not technically know: but Leliana has left off her hat today, and Leliana knows everything. The guards will descend upon Briala’s court in two days, unless they act, and Lavellan intends to act now.   
  
“I thought she’d trust me enough to tell me,” Lavellan mourns. “I understand the need for caution, but that she warned the Dread Wolf before me--”   
  
“She wanted him exposed,” Leliana says. “So Charter claims. If he did not act to help one of the last living hopes of Elvhenan, it would discredit him amongst his followers. And Briala is jealous of her recruits. I do not believe she thought he would act on this information.”   
  
She can play the Game as well as even the Marquise and the Dread Wolf, if not better. She is not in prison, and while some are calling her a living god, her people love her. Gaspard is holding the elves of Orlais hostage. She will not let them purge another alienage--she is playing to win.   
  
“She’s not dead yet,” Lavellan says. They reach the riverbank and turn onto the bridge where Charter said they’d meet. A man stands at the center, leaning on the railing. He gazes out onto the city, the Dirthavaren, the Promise. A seagull pulls inquiringly at his sleeve. Irritated, he brushes it away, and as the bird flies off with a squawk he turns around. Lavellan presses her lip into a thin line: Solas is still wearing the shirt her aunt made him.   
  
Solas, for his part, only flicks his eyes away and bows slightly. “Divine Victoria,” he says quietly. “Inquisitor. Thank you for agreeing to meet.”   
  
Leliana is staring at his feet. He is wearing shoes. Lavellan can see the wheels turning in Leliana’s head, and is looking forward to hearing her character assasination over a glass of wine, if Gaspard doesn’t kill them all first. They are relatively nice boots, well-worn, a bit muddy. It has rained recently, so that makes sense. Leliana will be able to tell her exactly where the mud comes from, of course, and if he’s killed anyone in their sleep recently, and exactly how often he cries himself to sleep, if he cries at all.   
  
Lavellan says, “Let’s leave the pleasantries aside, shall we? You know where Briala is being held. Her agents told yours--your  _ singular _ agent, because recruitment isn’t going particularly well, is it?” Solas frowns and folds his arms. Rejoicing in his disapproval, Lavellan continues, “No matter--we have the schema of the palace. And  _ my _ agents can get us in.” Specifically her mother-in-law can sneak them in, since she moved to organize Briala’s clerks in her court, and she is honestly looking forward to Manon taking the Dread Wolf’s measure. Leliana nudges her gently: play nice.   
  
“I have the clothes,” Leliana says. “The costumes, since we do all know how much you like to dress up.”   
  
A smile ghosts across Solas’ face. “I am quite curious to see how you’ll dress me.”   
  
“Not in a wig,” Leliana says. “Blond is not your color.”   
  
Both he and Lavellan laugh. Solas looks at her under his lashes, and Lavellan schools the smile off her face. She had been incredulous and delighted when Charter told them. He had clearly done it to make them laugh. He always liked to perform for her: likes, she thinks, he still likes to. She eyes him, considering. What is he getting out of this? Leliana thinks she can wheedle it out.   
  
“Let’s go,” Lavellan says forcibly. “We do not know how much longer we have, and I’d like to spare our sister as much suffering as we can. They only leave you alone the first day, to get you scared.” They torture the ones in the cells next to you, to set the mood. Lavellan brushes the gashes on her face, remembering, and then she makes herself stop. Leliana and Solas look at her, concerned. Irritated, she snaps, “Let’s go. We haven’t much time left.”   
  
They cross the bridge and leave the Dirthavaren behind them, and Leliana guides them to one of her many safehouses. She leaves them with their costumes and closes the door behind them.   
  
Solas says, “Alas, no wig. But she is right: blond is not my color.”   
  
Lavellan ignores him and strips out of her tunic. The servant’s dress is a bit hard to lace up, and the sleeve snags in the metal ligaments of her prosthetic. It tears.   
  
“Fuck,” she says, helpless. She counts: one, two, three, and breathes past it, and tugs her sleeve out. She stretches her metal arm out and splays the fingers. They’re too clumsy to do up buttons and tighten stays. She stands in her dress and waits. Solas silently changes his clothes. He keeps the wolf-bone necklace on. She catches him staring at her.   
  
“I don’t need your help,” she says.   
  
“I was not offering it,” he says mildly.   
  
Before Lavellan can snap back, Leliana returns with a tub of greasepaint. She eyes Solas and turns to Lavellan. Wordlessly, Lavellan turns, to get her to do up the back. Leliana buttons and ties her into the dress, and buttons her cuffs.   
  
“We’ll need to cover your scars,” she says. “And your vallaslin.”   
  
“Absolutely not,” Lavellan says immediately.   
  
Leliana says, “I understand your discomfort, but a Dalish elf with large gashes across her face is recognizable, no matter how nondescript we dress her. You are no longer invisible, Inquisitor. And we cannot afford to dawdle.”   
  
Lavellan says repressively, “Of course. Make it quick.” Leliana paints her face, and she is struck by how surreal her life has become. The Divine is painting over her vallaslin while the Dread Wolf watches. She glances at him, and to his credit he does not offer up a smile. He looks sad. He always looks sad.   
  
Leliana is kind enough not to offer her a mirror. She pulls out the map of the Winter Palace, and shows them the route they must take. Lavellan brushes against Solas’ shoulder as they lean in. Solas shies away.   
  
“You’ll enter the catacombs from here and walk along the aqueduct to Briala’s offices. Gaspard believes he has them sealed, but he does not know about the servants’ passageways within the very walls of the elvhen quarter of the palace.” Leliana traces her finger down the map. “Manon will meet you where the paths intersect under the Great Hall, and show you how to climb above to the cells.”   
  
Lavellan blinks. “So they keep the torture chambers right about the ballroom? How utterly Orlesian.”   
  
Leliana says, “It is quite a performance. Some dances are choreographed around the screams. No one knows quite  _ where _ prisoners are held, of course. Or they pretend not to know. But others have broken free before, and I am confident that the two of you can move her out. And once she has claimed asylum with the Chantry, I can act, and charge Gaspard as an enemy of the faith.”   
  
“And then you will grant the petition of the Council of Heralds to let him free,” Solas says, “and put the Duke Cyril de Montfort in his place, who is less interested in wracking his country with civil war and pogroms and will stand strong against the Qun.”   
  
“Surely your distaste for the Qun isn’t the only reason you’re here,” Lavellan remarks. “And you have pretended at length not to care about what the People think of you. Since you do not think of us as people. What does Briala have on you?”   
  
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Solas says. “Perhaps I tire of wading through dead elves. A better world is coming. That does not mean I enjoy seeing our people suffer in the interim.”   
  
Lavellan exchanges a glance with Leliana. He has expanded his definition of personhood, but not by much. If the lives of the elves of Halamshiral were not at stake, she would hound him on that, and triangulate with Leliana--but there is no time for that. She does not take the bait.   
  
“Maker be with you,” Leliana says. She smiles oddly at Lavellan. “May the Dread Wolf never hear your step.”   
  
Lavellan laughs. Leliana pulls open the trapdoor, and they descend into the bowels of the city. The ladder is built into the stone, and it is wet and slippery under her hand. For once Lavellan is glad of the prosthetic. It steadies her down to the rushing river below, funneling the water that feeds the city. Solas waits for her at the bottom, hands glowing slightly. He has pulled a barrier spell right to the edge of the Veil, just in case.   
  
Silently she gestures to him to follow, and they hug the wall as they walk the narrow path towards the palace. Every twenty feet they come across a glowstone; Lavellan begins counting. Manon told her that she would reach the crossroads after the fortieth light. The water roars, the brickwork drips, and they keep walking.   
  
At the twenty-eighth glowstone, Lavellan says idly, “You shaved the beard.”   
  
“As you said, it was not a particularly compelling disguise,” Solas says. They have to shout to hear each other over the water, which is not a particularly good idea. They fall silent, and the corridor gradually widens over the water, which reduces to a quiet stream. Now they walk in step. They reach the fortieth glowstone and Lavellan stops.   
  
Her mother-in-law steps out of the shadows, carrying a lantern. She has more gray in her hair, Lavellan notes sorrowfully, and her mouth is pressed thin and tight.   
  
“Da’vhenan,” Manon says: child of my heart. “Why do I never see you unless there is a catastrophe?”   
  
“I’m making this one right,” Lavellan says. Briala will not die like Mahanon did: that goes unsaid. Manon examines Solas doubtfully and chooses supremely to say nothing. She turns her back to them and gestures to them to follow.   
  
“Where are the others?” Lavellan whispers. “Surely you’re not the only elf left in the palace.”   
  
“They have been encouraged to go home,” Manon says. “And the servants’ quarters have been locked. This was customary, of course, in Celene’s day. But I am glad you are here. Your life is considered so much less disposable than ours. If you fail, the shem will not torture you again, at least. But they’ll take it out on him.”   
  
“We will not fail,” Solas says.    
  
“I don’t find promises from the Dread Wolf particularly reassuring,” Manon says lightly. “I like it better when the gods keep silent.”   
  
Solas, amused, catches Lavellan’s eye, and Lavellan suppresses a smile. She does enjoy her mother-in-law. It is a shame only catastrophe brings them together: her husband’s death, the purging of the Dirthavaren, venatori in the Winter Palace, now this.   
  
“Don’t worry, Mamae,” Lavellan says. “I have it well in hand.”   
  
Manon leads them to a sloping stairwell and hangs the lantern at the entrance. She tells them to climb. They must follow the stairs along a steep curve along the dome of the Winter Palace ballroom. Briala is likely kept close to the top, behind a halla-locked door. Manon hands them a bag full of the statues they need. Solas shoulders it. There is only one way in, slithering between the ligaments of the Winter Palace. Lavellan flexes her prosthetic, arming her spirit blade. If they must they will fight their way out and leave no survivors. That is the Game: but it is so much more elegant to empty it, rather than leaving a trail of corpses to bloat the aqueduct.   
  
Lavellan hugs Manon tightly. “Stay safe,” she tells her. “Get out of here. Leliana will protect you. She’ll bring you back to Val Royeaux.”   
  
“My, my,” Manon murmurs. “The Divine’s protection. We really have risen in the world.” She pulls away from her and examines the greasepaint. “Don’t get caught. You don’t need any more unnecessary scars.”   
  
Stung, Lavellan draws back. Manon steps back into the shadows. Solas turns to her, concerned.   
  
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says. “I’m alive, her son is not. And she hasn’t seen her granddaughters since before the Conclave. It’s my fault.”   
  
“But she loves you,” Solas remarks. “‘Child of her heart.’”   
  
“And so do you, and that has not done me much good,” Lavellan shoots back. Solas’ face tightens in the shadows.   
  
“True,” he says. He reaches tentatively towards her. “You have been here before.”   
  
Lavellan breathes: one two three, in. Halt: one two three four. Out: one two three four, one long gust. “In a place like this,” she says. “Not here. In Val Royeaux, and then in Wycombe. And of course, you remember Haven.”   
  
She lets him take her hand and squeeze it. “We will leave this place whole,” he says.   
  
“A promise from the Dread Wolf,” Lavellan says. “Forgive me if I am not reassured.” Still she does not drop his hand, and they enter the stairway together. Their eyes adjust seamlessly to the dark. The smell is horrible and the heat atrocious. Still, they continue to climb, and Lavellan wonders what is happening below. Perhaps Duke de Montfort’s men have entered the palace by now. Perhaps Gaspard himself is pacing in circles, stroking his moustache as he prepares for the inevitable backlash. Perhaps the room is simply empty, and it is only full in the Fade, where spirits reenact Briala watching Celene die again and again.   
  
A low mumble sings between the bricks and plaster wall. Solas and Lavellan stop in unison. Lavellan drops his hand and rubs her head, suddenly fatigued. Pressure is building behind her eyes.   
  
“The song,” she says.   
  
“It’s red lyrium,” Solas says. “It should not be in Halamshiral.”   
  
“It’s a desecration,” Lavellan says angrily. “It should not be in the heart of what was once my people’s city.” Solas looks at her strangely.   
  
“On that, at least, we agree,” he says. “Let’s keep moving.” He waits for her to move in front of him. Lavellan rolls her eyes. She does not know if it because he does not trust her, or because he wants to make a show of protecting her back, or if he simply dislikes walking first into the dark--likely all three. But with evidence of red lyrium in the Winter Palace, Leliana now has enough to order Gaspard to stand down.   
  
The curve of the halls glow red as they continue upward, and the song grows stronger. Lavellan is sweating off the greasepaint. It is worse here than in Emprise du Lion; it is growing in the mortar between the bricks themselves in the worryingly empty cells.   
  
Solas says suddenly, “This is an experiment.” He stops, brow furrowed as he stares at the minuscule lyrium crystals between the bricks. “A foolish one, because it will eventually take down the roof.” They reach the top of the stairs, and Solas places the halla statues along the doorframe. They glow a sickly green, and the lock clicks. Lavellan charges her spirit blade and pushes the door open.   
  
Briala is chained to the wall, staring fixedly at a growth of red lyrium in the center of the room. It is pulsing up her chains, inching closer and closer to her wrists. She looks up and says, “Maker. Get me out of here. I cannot hear myself think.” Horrified, Lavellan hurries over and strikes off her chains. Briala crumbles to the floor. She picks her up.   
  
“Solas, her shoulders,” she says. “Her wrists!”   
  
Solas kneels next to her. Hands glowing a comforting green, he massages Briala’s shoulders back into place and heals the bruising the cuffs left on her wrists.   
  
Briala says, half-deliriously, “If you are the Dread Wolf and that is the Herald, what does that make me? The Arrow?” She rests her head on Lavellan’s shoulder. “Has he moved against our people?”   
  
“Not yet,” she says. “He won’t. I will not let him.” She looks at Solas over Briala’s head. He is staring beyond them, lost in a reverie. She shapes  _ my love _ on her tongue and stops herself. “Solas?” she says instead. “We need to move.”   
  
He startles. “Yes,” he says. “Forgive me. Imprisonment is hard to bear.” They still, and Lavellan understands that all she has been through, her and Briala both, he has lived too. He touches her shoulder and helps her hoist Briala up, carefully skirting the red lyrium.   
  
Briala says, “They did something to my legs. Injected something. Poison, but they wanted the lyrium to eat me alive.”   
  
“So not so poisonous,” Lavellan says. “Lethallin, let me carry you.” Briala sags in her arms and carefully they maneuver towards the door. Solas walks down the slope first, drawing a barrier close to their side of the Veil. It drowns out the singing, but her head continues to pound. Briala’s breathing is practiced and even. She has been through this sort of pain before--but their people don’t rise this high without learning how to breathe pain to make it manageable, so that it doesn’t snatch at your very respiration, that you can have that much control over your body, even as it revolts from the inside. Lavellan does not let her thoughts lose her. Carefully and steadily, she steps through the prison and never loses her footing.   
  
They reach the end of the staircase and Solas fishes a healing potion from his pocket. Lavellan sets Briala down. Briala looks at Lavellan. She nods, and only then does Briala reach for it. Solas’ face is unreadable. Briala drinks.   
  
“My people,” she says. “Do they know?”   
  
“We’ve kept word from spreading,” Lavellan says. “Manon let us know.”   
  
“And your man let mine,” Solas adds. Briala grimaces.   
  
“A pleasant surprise,” Briala says. “I had assumed you would be too proud.” She looks at Lavellan sardonically. “He feels guilty that when he took the eluvians from us, he interrupted a supply chain to the ghetto in Jader. Babies and old men starved, because of the Dread Wolf. And of course, you cannot let Orlais fall to Tevinter and the Qun before you take the Dales, can you?”   
  
Solas says, “You have your life. Would you like to keep it? The more we dawdle, the more we risk discovery. Let us leave this place.”   
  
Lavellan picks up Briala. She murmurs in her ear, “Dead babies. Nice touch.” Briala seizes a second--the closest she can come to a laugh.   
  
They follow Solas’ light through the underbelly of the palace and back into the roaring aqueduct. Lavellan is panting heavily now, prosthetic digging into her skin. Briala tries to support herself and nearly falls into the water. Solas turns to watch as Lavellan shouts and grabs her back, both of them slipping to the ground. He does not offer them a hand up. Lavellan glares at him, covered in muck. She picks Briala back up. When it is clear they will not fall, Solas turns around and keeps walking. Lavellan tries to keep up, but her energy is flagging, and she falls behind. When they round the next bend Solas is gone. While there are footsteps tracing a path through the muck into the catacombs of Halamshiral, Lavellan has neither the time nor the rage to follow.   
  
“Asshole,” Lavellan says. She steadies Briala on her back and climbs back into the light.


End file.
